ABSTRACT
By the autumn of 1943 the Soviet Union had survived the worst Germany could inflict upon it. Although Joseph Stalin pressured the British and American governments to open a second front in Europe, the Western Allies were unprepared to invade Northern France. Still, their supply of the Soviet Union increased as the Battle of the Atlantic turned in their favour. Even though Anglo-American airpower inflicted mounting damage to German industry and infrastructure, the course of the war in Europe turned slowly. Japan’s reversal of fortunes was rapid. It had been at war since 1931, yet its political and military leadership pursued incoherent goals. By comparison, the military and political leadership of the United States settled on a unified policy of naval and maritime offensives across the Central Pacific on a scale unprecedented in history. In June 1944 the Allied invasion of France in the west, Operation Overlord, was accompanied by the Soviet Operation Bagration in the east to bring irresistible force against Germany. Although Germany had to be taken by land forces fighting all the way to Berlin, strategic air power, in the form of nuclear weapons, forced a surrender from Japan without an invasion of its home islands.
